06/08/17 - Day 66 - Boston, MA - Harvard Museum of Natural History
Spent an afternoon visiting the Harvard Museum of Natural History and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.
The museum starts out a little slow, though maybe that's because my last point of comparison was the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. After skimming through a high level overview of the evolution of life on earth, they got the good stuff: skeletons and stuffed animals. This case displayed some enormous versions of modern day animals that existed thousands of years ago: a giant tapir-like animal, a giant armadillo-like critter, and a giant sloth.
Kronosaurus (42 feet long, 135 million years old)
They also had several rooms of animals from around the world.
They also had an ore and mineral exhibit similar to the Smithsonian's
Including examples of gold! GOLD!
The museum also included an anthropology exhibit. Harvard's museum seems to insinuate that they were the first to develop the field of study, though an Internet search leads to at least half a dozen anthropological societies they predate the creation of the Peabody museum.
Regardless, the Harvard museum was a significant early player in the field and includes a lot of artifacts from the time period, including a very creepy toolkit used to categorize ethnic traits such as hair and eye color.
The highlight of the tour for me was in the zoological wing where they had a glass case with a functioning bee hive. Very cool to see all the workers in action, travelling in and out of the hive as well as doing the "waggle" dance to show all their brethren where the best food sources could be found.
The museum starts out a little slow, though maybe that's because my last point of comparison was the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. After skimming through a high level overview of the evolution of life on earth, they got the good stuff: skeletons and stuffed animals. This case displayed some enormous versions of modern day animals that existed thousands of years ago: a giant tapir-like animal, a giant armadillo-like critter, and a giant sloth.
Kronosaurus (42 feet long, 135 million years old)
They also had several rooms of animals from around the world.
They also had an ore and mineral exhibit similar to the Smithsonian's
Including examples of gold! GOLD!
The museum also included an anthropology exhibit. Harvard's museum seems to insinuate that they were the first to develop the field of study, though an Internet search leads to at least half a dozen anthropological societies they predate the creation of the Peabody museum.
Regardless, the Harvard museum was a significant early player in the field and includes a lot of artifacts from the time period, including a very creepy toolkit used to categorize ethnic traits such as hair and eye color.
The highlight of the tour for me was in the zoological wing where they had a glass case with a functioning bee hive. Very cool to see all the workers in action, travelling in and out of the hive as well as doing the "waggle" dance to show all their brethren where the best food sources could be found.
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